The aims and claims of Germany

OKe

AIMS and CLAIMS of GERMANY

Bj) DAVID KINLEY

PUBLISHED BY THE

COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE
FEBRUARY, iq.8

The following address was delivered by Dr. David Kinley,
Vice-President of the University of Illinois, upon the occa-
sion of the War Conference called at the University hy the
State Council of Defense, the Corn Growers' and Stockmen's
Convention, and the College of Agriculture, for the purpose of
discussing the relations of the farmer to the war and arrang-
ing a program of production to he recommended to the state.

January 31, 1918

THE AIMS AND CLAIMS OF GERMANY

By DAVID KINIiEY

Three times since western civilization was established has
it been in danger of overthrow and its light in danger of being
blotted out under the attacks of more barbaric social orders.
The first was by the invasion of the Huns who, in the fourth
century after Christ, appeared on the eastern borders of
Europe and drove the inhabitants in thousands across the
Danube. Pushing westwards they later crossed the Rhine. All
that had been accomplished by Roman civilization in the west
was endangered ; but, in the providence of God, the embattled
armies of the Goths and Romans combined, on the plains of
Chalons in France, overthrew the Hunnish army of 700,000 and
turned back the deluge of barbarism. The second great crisis in
the life of that civilization of which we are the heirs occurred
when the Saracens, after a wonderful career of victory, estab-
lished the banner of Mohammedanism through all Western
Asia and Northern Africa and finally carried it across the
Straits of Gibraltar with the avowed purpose that the Cres-
cent which they bore was to float over a Universal Empire
built upon the ruins of Christendom. "The dream of Mithri-
dates and of Caesar was to be realized in the actual achieve-
ments of the lieutenants of the Caliphs. The Saracen chief
now upon the soil of Gaul was to subjugate the Franks and
their confederates, cross the Rhine and crush the tribes beyond
that stream, and then follow down the course of the Danube
to its mouth. Upon the shores of the Hellespont the bands
of the Faithful were to join hands and together give thanks
to Allah for the conquest of the World." But in 732 A. D. the
heirs of the civilization of the Roman Empire, the defenders
of progress and of Christianity, met the Moslems on the battle-
field of Tours and, after a seven days' terrific conflict, delivered
the civilization of Europe from a danger which had not threat-
ened it since the invasion of Attila and his Huns.

Today a plan of conquest for the domination of Europe, as
the first step towards the domination of the world, very similar
to that of the Saracens, has endangered once more the progress
of centuries of civilization. The ultimate aim of the German
Empire in the present war is no less the conquest of the world
than was the ultimate aim of the Saracens. In the intervals
between these great crises men and nations have fought for
various causes. They have warred for creeds, for commerce,
for land, for prestige, and for no reason at all except the bid-
ding of princes and kings; but never before in the history of
the modern world has any nation, any people, any govern-
ment, deliberately set about the destruction of their fellow
peoples, fellow nations, fellow governments, for the purpose
of crushing out their separate national existences, on the
theory that all people but themselves were inferior races de-
serving only extinction or complete subordination. That this is
the purpose and spirit of the German nation as avowed by its
Government and its leaders in literature, education and public
life, we find abundant evidence from their own testimony, to
which I shall shortly advert. But before doing so it will help
us to inquire somewhat into the character and growth of a
government which, in the twentieth century, could precipitate
upon the world so great a danger and avow itself an agent of
Almighty God to destroy all that other peoples have accom-
plished and other civilizations have achieved.

For centuries the land that is now Germany had been torn
asunder by constant dissensions and wars among the princes
and small groups of people which formed the various duchies
and kingdoms that made up the so-called Holy Roman Empire
after imperial Rome had lost her grip upon the rest of Europe.
Through generations there existed a longing among these
peoples, frequently expressed in their literature, for a combi-
nation or union into one great country. The unity of Germany
was a dream for the realization of which every patriotic Ger-
man worked and prayed. But rivalries and disputes, due to
one cause and another, delayed the realization of the dream
until the middle of the 19th century. For a hundred years or
more the military power of Prussia, the most powerful of the

separate German states, had been growing and it was with
this as a tool that the project was finally accomplished. After
Bismarck became prime minister of Prussia in 1862 a definite
policy of militarizing the whole Prussian nation was adopted
and thereby an army created which, when the time came,
would be effective for the purposes of Bismarck and his mas-
ter, King William. Cynical and unscrupulous, recognizing
no law nor right of God or man that stood in the way of his
purposes, using cajolery, treachery or force as suited the occa-
sion, Bismarck, first appealing to the ambitions of Austria,
made war on Denmark and took from her the provinces of
Schleswig-Holstein which Germany has retained ever since.
Then he quarrelled with Austria over the spoils, made war
upon his late ally, and inflicted upon her a humiliating defeat
which deprived her of all influence over the German states
and left Prussia their acknowledged leader. Four years later,
in 1870, he struck at France and took from her the two prov-
inces of Alsace and Lorraine, together with an indemnity of
about one billion dollars with v/hich to strengthen and improve
the German military machine. Aside from aversion to the
methods, or some of the methods, employed by Bismarck to
accomplish his purposes, the civilized world at large sympa-
thized with the German people in their desire for national
unity. No one appreciated the deep laid plan df the master-
hand of blood and iron and his coadjutors whereby these
preliminary conquests and this accomplished national unity
were to be made but stepping-stones to larger conquests and
wider domination.

The thirty years which succeeded the Franco-Prussian war
were utilized to develop the military system which made Ger-
many the foremost military power in the world. Meantime,
the Government of the Empire set about devising conditions
of social and economic life which would remove internal agita-
tion and develop the Empire industrially and commercially.
The progress of Germany became the wonder of the world.
In industry and trade, in literature and education, in military
growth and civil administration she assumed to take the place
of leadership and was acknowledged as leader not only in these

matters, not only among the peoples of Europe, who feared
to cross her will, but by thousands of our own people who,
too busy to look below the surface, or too shallow in their
appreciation of German political philosophy and its goal,
preached and taught for years the doctrines of German supe-
riority and German efficiency.

American students and American university professors
went for higher education to Germany, and without realizing
the trend of the philosophical ideas which underlay the educa-
tion they received, came back in scores and hundreds to spread
the story of German efficiency and intellectual progress. Some
of them were slavish followers of the doctrines of their teach-
ers, and have been unable ever to rid themselves of the impe-
rialistic point of view which they acquired at these German
seats of learning. They have unconsciously spread doctrines
that are pernicious in a democracy. They have urged the
adoption of German methods, standards and plans, apparently
without any consciousness of the fact that these methods and
plans were adopted in Germany for the sake of furthering
certain purposes which have no place in the life of a demo-
cratic people. They have become in many cases apologists
for things German, even some of the worst things that have
disgraced humanity in the present war. They have become
centers of influence for the promotion of German Kultur
in university classrooms, in the school room and in the press.
They have gone so far in some cases as to be, whether pur-
posely or not, agents of the propaganda of German Kultur.
Some of them have made themselves ridiculous by publishing
works trying to establish the doctrine that everything of im-
portance in the United States had a German origin ; that some
of the greatest writers in English literature and philosophy
were indebted exclusively to Germans for their inspiration and
their principal doctrines ; that, in short, the roots of all that is
good among the English-speaking peoples, and indeed, among
others, lead back to German sources.

The doctrine of efficiency has been much preached of late
years, and German example in this respect has been held up

6

for the world to follow. We must remember, however, that
efficiency, after all, is a relative matter. Efficiency is desirable
only if its purpose is approvable. Efficiency, or perfection in
the performance of a given act, is worth while only if the act
is worth while. To make a thief efficient is not a good thing.
To be an efficient liar, or robber, or murderer is not a good
thing. Now it is true that in industry and trade, in the art
of war and the machinery of education, as well as in other
lines, the German people in the past two generations have
attained, in some respects, a greater perfection or efficiency
than most of the rest of the world. They have done so, how-
ever, because they have been bending all their energies for a
definite specific purpose: preparation for war. Any people
could become efficient if they devoted themselves to a par-
ticular end for a long enough time. The rest of the world has
thought other things better worth while. Moreover, this effi-
ciency about which we talk so much has proven, after all, a
broken reed. In less than four years since the outbreak of the
war the nations which the German Government regarded as pe-
culiarly inefficient in military matters have beaten Germany at
her own game. In the supply of munitions, in the command
of the air, in the command of the sea, in the art of trench mak-
ing and keeping, in the number and power of great guns, in
the use of that devil's device, poisonous gas, and in nearly
every other respect, the military technique of the Germans
has been attained and surpassed by the French and British. In
the so-called chemical industries, of which it was supposed
that Germany had an unconquerable monopoly, especially in
such matters as the manufacture of dyes and certain kinds of
glass, both the British and we have already put ourselves in
a position to supply our ov/n wants. In other words, we have
not done these things hitherto, because we had other things
of more importance to do. As soon as it was necessary for
us to turn our attention to these we did them. There is now
no dye of importance formerly imported from Germany, that
we are not making. We have the secrets of more kinds of
optical glass than Germany ever made. The same is true in
other lines. The hollowness of the whole organization could

not have been better shown than by the rapidity with which
the rest of the world has adapted itself to the conditions forced
upon it by this long-conceived and slowly-worked-out plan for
military ascendency.

For education, art, religion, industry, trade, philosophy,
public administration, all have been directed to the attainment
of that end — the perfection of military power. German mili-
tary methods became the standard for the armies of other na-
tions. The world watched and did not understand that the
awful engine of war was constructed for the purpose of terror-
izing and dominating the world. Few saw clearly and fewer
still believed. But it is evident now that it was all part of a
deliberate plan of preparation for a war which it was believed
would establish German supremacy over a beaten, mutilated,
murdered world. Briefly put, the present war was begun by
the German Government in order to effectuate a third in a
series of steps planned since the days of Bismarck. The first
was the accomplishment of German unity ; the second the cre-
ation of the strongest military power in Europe ; the third, the
attainment of a military position sufficiently strong to dominate
the world. Men ask, and History will ask, what claims, what
defense, does Germany offer in explanation of such a crime.

Some German public men and writers claim that they are
engaged in a war of defense, and that the responsibility for the
present world catastrophe does not rest on them. It is hardly
worth while, in view of all the testimony and evidence that
have been published on this matter, to discuss this now. The
claim was not advanced until the advance of the German army
was checked. It may be said, however, that there are few in-
cidents in history for which the responsibility can be fixed as
definitely as can the responsibility for beginning this war.
Following Bismarck's policy, the German Government had in
its diplomacy always tried to shape events so that it would
seem not to be the aggressor. This was the case with Den-
mark in 1862. It was the case with Austria in 1866. It was
the case with France in 1870, Bismarck even going so far as
to falsify a telegram in order to make his position more plau-
sible. So in the present case. Germany accepted the murder

8

of the Austrian Archduke as the opportunity for her to strike
at her neighbors and enlarge her power. We know now on
German testimony that a conference was held as early as July
5, 1914, at which it was decided that there would be war. We
know now as well as we know anything, that the German Gov-
ernment knew and approved beforehand the Austrian ultima-
tum to Serbia. Germany knew that Russia was unprepared for
war, and that France was not fully prepared. She knew that
Great Britain was wholly unprepared. That she knew these
things we know from the testimony of her own statesmen.
The very diplomatic statements made to excuse their conduct
in the early days of the war show that they felt that they must
strike both Russia and France because Germany was ready
and they were not. She herself, as somebody has remarked,
was ready to the last cannon, the last reservist, and the last
railroad car. In the great mass of diplomatic correspondence
between the middle of July and the second of August, 1914,
there is not a telegram or a communication of any kind to show
that Germany made the slightest effort to secure delay by
Austria. In short, Germany not only planned the war but
seized the opportune time and planned the stroke.

Some Americans apologizing, before we entered the war,
for Germany's action, have assumed to take the high intellec-
tual ground that the great conflict, historically speaking, was
inevitable ; that it is the inevitable result of the clashing inter-
ests of rival peoples. True, the conflict was in a sense inev-
itable. When a criminal breaks into a man's house at night
and is discovered, a conflict is inevitable. When a band of
pirates or robbers undertakes to interfere with the livelihood
and orderly, peaceable living of honest men, a conflict is inev-
itable. If, therefore, by this statement it is intended to say
that a conflict was inevitable because a group of people in one
part of the world were wrongfully planning to attack another
group, the statement is correct. If, however, it is intended to
mean, as undoubtedly its sponsors have wished it to mean, that
the clashing "interests" of the aggressor were morally justifi-
able, or that the aggressors were unconscious of the iniquity of
their claims, or that the so-called inevitableness of the conflict

9

removes responsibility for it from the shoulders of those who
plotted it and started it, the statement is neither correct nor
worthy of argument by honest minded men. A conflict has
been inevitable whenever in the history of the world brigands,
robbers or wild beasts have attacked the peaceful settlements
and homes of men who were trying to live their own lives in
their own way. As long as courage remains, conflicts under
such circumstances will be inevitable. But there is no room
in the code of men of honor for an excuse or apology of this
kind set up as a defense of the most outrageous violation of the
laws of humanity, and the most tremendous transgression of
the principles of morality and of national conduct that the
world has ever seen.

One argument to justify themselves, advanced by the pres-
ent leaders of German thought, is that might makes right ; that
therefore the German nation may possess itself of the posses-
sions of the weaker; and that the moral law which obtains
among individuals does not hold as between states, which are,
so to speak, beings of a different order of morality. We need
not go far to find evidence of the truth of this statement from
the mouths of the Germans themselves. For example, we are
told by the author of Gross-Deutschland, published in 1911,
that: "in the good old times it happened that a strong people
thrust a weak one out of its ancestral abode by wars of exter-
mination. Today everything goes on peaceably on this
wretched earth, and it is those who have profited who are for
peace. The little peoples and the remnants of a people have
invented a new word — that is international law. In reality it
is nothing else than their reckoning on our good-natured stu-
pidity Room ! they must make room ! Since we are

the stronger the choice will not be difficult."

Again we are told, in a volume published in 1895, that:

"Germans alone will govern They alone will exercise

political rights; however, they will condescend so far as to
delegate inferior tasks to foreign subjects who live among
them." Still again, we are told : "Let no man say every peo-
ple has a right to its existence, its speech, etc. With this
saying in one's mouth one can easily appear civilized, but only

10

so long as the respective peoples remain separated from one
another and do not stand in the way of a mightier one." The
writer of this fine piece of ethics goes on to say that if people
are not Germanic, and they are essentially aliens to Germanic
culture, the only question is : Are they in our way? "If they
are," he says, "to spare them would be folly."

We are told that "between states regarded as intelligent
beings disputes can be settled only by force." This idea was
advanced by Lasson as early as 1868. He was one of the pro-
fessors of philosophy at the University of Berlin, under whom,
doubtless, many American students have sat. He tells us, too,
in the same volume, that the state can realize itself only by the
destruction of other states, which, logically, can be brought
about only by violence.

Of course, in this conflict of states, the German is always
the best. Professor Haeckel, whose name was once honored
throughout the world, but who has joined the band of degraded
intellectuals who have thrown morality, common sense and
honesty to the winds, tells us that "One single, highly culti-
vated, German warrior of those who are, alas, falling in thou-
sands, represents a higher intellectual and moral life value
than hundreds of the raw children of nature whom England,
France, Russia and Italy oppose to them." The same ethics,
or lack of ethics, is shown in the remark of Karl Kuhn, of
Charlottenburg, who in philosophical ecstacy exclaims : "Must
kultur rear its domes over mountains of corpses, oceans of

tears and the death rattle of the conquered? Yes ; it must

The might of the conqueror is the highest law before which
the conquered must bow."

The state, we are told, need pay no attention to the moral
law. As long ago as 1906 the German doctrine was expounded
by various writers from whom I quote, as the right of might.
"By right of war the right of strange races to migrate into
Germanic settlements will be taken away. By right of war the
non-Germanic [population] in America and Great Australia

must be settled in Africa By right of war we can send

back the useless South American romance peoples and the
half-breeds to North Africa."

11

Again, we are told that "There [in Livonia and Kurland]
no other course is open to us but to keep the subject race in as
unciviHzed a condition as possible, and thus prevent them from
becoming a danger to the handful of their conquerors."

In short, the inferior races, and all races are inferior to the
German, are to be excluded from political life. Their individ-
uality, their political, their lingual and their moral existence is
to be crushed.

At times they have been out-spoken and frank concerning
their designs on other countries. Twenty years ago, in 1897,
one writer, Bley, told his compatriots : "You cannot talk and
sing about an indefensible watch on the Rhine as long as the
Dutch and the Swiss do not sing the same tune."

"As for Belgium and Holland," Frymann told us in 1911,^
"it must be clear to both that this [coming] war will deter-
mine their future. As matters in Europe have come to a head
one may freely avow that such little states have lost their right
to exist. For only that state can make a claim to indepen-
dence which can make it good, sword in hand." And with
shame be it said, there are Americans who have endorsed this
doctrine by writing essays to prove that Belgium is economi-
cally only an appanage of Germany and should be absorbed.

In 1901 we were told by another German that "Holland
must eventually be amalgamated with Germany, as both coun-
tries stand and fall together; the same language, ideals and

ideas distinguish both peoples, who must be one But

Germany is in the position to dictate terms and to force Hol-
land economically to seek union and absorption." Still again,
a distinguished German economist, speaking of Belgium, tells
the world that the "destinies of the immortal great nations
stand so high that they cannot but have the right, in case of
need, to strike every existence that cannot defend themselves,
but support themselves shamelessly upon the rivalries of the
great."

Under the policy of Bismarck, as I have said, German na-
tional unity v/as achieved through the establishment of the
Empire. After that his plan was to consolidate the various
German states, promote their unity of interests and ideals, and

12

to live on good terms with his neighbors. Germany was sat-
isfied with the accompHshment of her unity, and Bismarck's
influence was largely and strongly thrown against extra-terri-
torial ambitions. But when the present Emperor came to the
throne and forced Bismarck's retirement, a change gradually
came over the mind of the German nation. As one writer,
Frymann, put it some years ago: "Since Bismarck retired
there has been a complete change of public opinion. It is not
longer proper to say Germany is satisfied. Our historical de-
velopment and our economic needs show that we are once
more hungry for territory, and this situation compels Germany
to follow paths unforeseen by Bismarck."

The ambition of the nation became the domination of Eu-
rope, on the ground that they needed more land for their grow-
ing population. They proceeded to argue that the land of the
world was practically all occupied. Everywhere we go, they
tell us, we find that the Englishman has been before us ; and,
they added, we know that America has begun the same land-
grabbing policy, by your seizure of the Philippines, your tute-
lage of Cuba and Central America. Therefore, they concluded,
we must tear the land from the possession of those who have it.
A simple illustration will make clear the ethics of this wonder-
ful proposition. In this country, since the adoption of the Con-
stitution until now, there has been abundance of land open
to settlement on easy terms, or for nothing. Hundreds of
thousands of enterprising citizens have gone in and occupied
the land, so that now our population reaches in an unbroken
stretch from ocean to ocean. Now there are no more oppor-
tunities. The present generation and the next and the next,
and all succeeding generations, will be born only to find the
land all occupied. They want it, however, as ardently as you
wanted, or as your fathers or grandfathers wanted it, when
they took up the government patent for the acres that now are
yours. What shall we think of a proposition that we who
have come later and find the land all occupied, shall now drive
you off because we, forsooth, in our opinion, can make a better
use of it? Yet this precisely is the proposition of the German
Empire.

13

It became, then, an accepted doctrine of German foreign
policy, that neighboring small countries, Belgium, Denmark,
Holland and Switzerland should become a part of the German
Empire. Their lands were to be seized, whether the people
were willing or not. In addition, northern France was to be
taken so as to give the German Empire a sea line running from
Havre to the east end of Prussia. This perhaps was the first
form that their thoughts took, — an empire running therefore
from the western boundary of Russia south to Vienna and
west to the Atlantic ocean.

For one reason or another obstacles which they could not
or dared not try to surmount at the time prevented the early
fulfillment of this plan. But one of the remarkable features of
German policy is its elasticity. It was possible to accomplish
the purpose of domination in some other way. If an empire
cannot be established reaching from the Gulf of Riga to the
Bay of Biscay, one running from the North Sea to the Persian
Gulf, as the world has recently become aware, will serve the
purpose as well, — perhaps better! "The territory open to
future German expansion," Professor Hasse tells us, "must
extend from the North Sea to the Baltic and the Persian Gulf,
absorbing the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Switzerland, the
whole basin of the Danube, the Balkan Peninsula and Asia
Minor." So now the phrase "from the North Sea to the Per-
sian Gulf" has become the rallying cry of the Pan-Germans.

But one thing was only a stepping-stone to another. If, in
the first murderous onrush of her army in 1914, Germany had
succeeded in overrunning all of Belgium, and seizing the north-
ern part of France as far as Havre, or even Dieppe, she would
have been content for a time. For such an increase in terri-
tory, if she could keep it, would give her the means for
strengthening her army and navy for the next onslaught. For
rest assured, there is to be a next onslaught, as I will
show in another place, unless the world succeeds in destroying
German military autocracy. This territory would have served
as a stepping-stone for an aggression to realize the dream of an
empire to the Persian Gulf, and that in turn would have laid
the foundation for a new grip, reaching into Asia, for the con-

14

trol of India and China. These are avowed purposes, as may
be learned from the works of many German writers. Failing
for the present to accomplish the seizure of the Atlantic lit-
toral from Antwerp west ; check-mated in the dream of "Berlin
to Bagdad" ; thrown out of the colonial empire which he pos-
sessed ; the German militarist now turns for enlargment of the
Empire by the seizure of Poland and of Russia territory as far
as the Gulf of Riga. It makes little difference where the foot-
hold is, so long as it is a larger foothold that will enable him
to prepare himself to deliver his next blow with mightier force.
"Land, more land," as the cry is expressed by Maximilian
Harden, who is now so frequently quoted by pacifist poltroons
among our own countrymen who are seeking peace at the ex-
pense of principle. Harden was one of the loudest shriekers
for blood at the beginning of the war, when prospects seemed
favorable to complete German success. Lately he has been
advocating what he calls a moderate policy, holding up to his
country the moderation of President Wilson and Lloyd-
George. Now that he sees that the purposes which he sup-
ported cannot be attained he is whining for the best mode of
escape.

But the establishment of this European empire was for the
purpose of furnishing another stepping-stone on which to
stand and dictate to the world. "Germany," we are told by
Pastor Lehmann, "is the center of God's plans for the world."
"Germany," another tells us, "as the preponderant power in a
Great-German league will with this war attain world suprem-
acy." And still again, Nietzsche, writing thirty-three years
ago, tells us that "the time for petty politics is past, the next
century will bring the struggle for the dominion of the world."
It was in keeping with this purpose and plan that the Kaiser
declared some years ago to his people: "Our future lies on
the sea"; that he and his associates in government planned a
great colonial empire. As another German professor tells us,
writing some years ago : "If we do not soon acquire new ter-
ritory a frightful catastrophe is inevitable. It signifies little
whether it be in Brazil, in Siberia, in Anatolia, or in South
Africa." Anywhere in the world they were ready to seize the

15

best. They recognized no rights on the part of the existing
population. The fact that Germany wanted land gave her a
moral right to take it at the expense of the property and lives
of its present occupants, or of anybody else. "Let us," says
Karl Wagner, "let us bravely organize great forced migrations

of the inferior peoples The inefficient must be hemmed

in and at last driven into reserves where they have no room to

grow and where, discouraged and rendered indifferent

to the future by the spectacle of the superior energy of their
conquerors, they may crawl slowly towards the peaceful death
of weary and hopeless senility."

But the dough must be leavened before it can be baked.
Therefore Germans must be scattered over the world and
wherever possible brought together into localities which will
develop a German spirit and German point of view, and secure
a dominating influence on the public opinion and politics of the
country. Later on these groups will serve admirably as cen-
ters around which to organize new colonies under the German
flag!

These, then, are the main outlines of the plan of the Ger-
man autocracy to bring the world into subjection. Can any
man understand this plan and fail to see that its attainment
would strike at the roots of liberty, free government and de-
mocracy everywhere? The insidious influence and power of
autocracy would be established in a multitude of centers scat-
tered over the globe, like the suckers on the tentacles of a
mighty devilfish, whose body rested on and drew its suste-
nance and strength from the main part of the autocratic em-
pire. Sensitive to every touch, its body would react to throw
its strength wherever there was an opportunity to attach a
tentacle, or a sucker on a tentacle, to a new object that it could
absorb, and whose life it could destroy. There would be no
safety for a freedom-loving people anywhere on the globe, be-
cause these tentacles of influence and power would be contin-
ually reaching out and constantly growing. No nation, not
even our own, would have been able to stand up alone with any
assurance of ultimate success against such a power. At any
rate, ultimate success by us in such a struggle, when it came,

16

would have had to be attained at a cost of life, form of govern-
ment, and all that democracies hold dear, which would have
made men pause and ask whether the struggle were worth
while.

Laying down as their fundamental and unchallengeable
premise that what the Germans want is right, and that since
they wish to expand, to seize other people's land and dominate
the world, they, as the chosen people of Almighty God, have
a right to do it; that no such word as "wrong" can be recog-
nized in their vocabulary ; the defendants of the monstrous pro-
gram of German autocracy make certain claims in their own
defense and certain complaints which we will proceed briefly
to examine.

Being very scientific, by a perversion of reasoning, they ar-
gue that what they call the biological law of life, the right of
the fittest to survive, confers upon the strong the right to ex-
tirpate the weak. They do not ask who is fittest to survive.
They beg the question by taking it for granted that the only
being fit to survive is the one endowed with brute strength.
They then confuse the exertion of brute force with moral right.
In short, in this matter they have followed the custom which
runs through all German political and philosophical as well as
psychological arguments. They first have made up their
minds what they want to establish, and then they interpret the
data which they have at hand in such a way as to sustain their
point. I have read a good deal of German political and eco-
nomic literature in the past fifteen years, and have been im-
pressed every time with this fact. They prove what they want
to prove, and show either a real indifference to the facts, or a
complete failure to realize that they are not on their side.

Concerning the German claim of their right to expand, it
may be said, in reply, that no country has ever objected to
receiving desirable members of the fatherland who in years
past have left her shores. No better citizens of our own coun-
try have come from any part of the world than those of Ger-
man stock. It would have been a great thing for German
moral and educational influence to spread over the civilized
world through the impress of the character and training of her

17

sons and daughters. But this was not enough to satisfy the
autocratic government of the Empire. Wherever a German
goes he must still remain a German, and retain his connections
with the home government! The flag must be established
and the language spoken wherever Germans go! The right
to expansion in this sense is, of course, a right that the world
cannot grant.

With reference to the German claim that they are waging
a war of defense and not of conquest, it would be laughable if
it were not tragic, to see how they have shifted their ground.
The utterances of every spokesman of the Teutonic Empire at
the outbreak of the war, the literature of Germany for more
than a generation, her state of preparedness to wage war, and
her utter neglect to attempt to stay the beginning of war, are
all evidence that she entered the conflict with a desire, and pur-
pose, and intention, for conquest. To be sure, when she found
herself hemmed in and unable to advance further, especially
on the western front and, indeed, on the eastern, until the Rus-
sian collapse, then we find a change of tone. Through the
utterances of her spokesmen now there runs the note of that
whine which characterizes them in defeat. Some people "can-
not stand the gaff." They lack the spirit of sport.

Germany claims, as she has claimed for a generation, that
she has been forced to become a military state, to develop the
strongest army in the world in self-defense. "On the one
side," she says, "we are threatened with the eruption of the
barbarian hordes of Russia ; while on the other hostile peoples
hem us in. We must always be in a position to defend our-
selves." If Germany had developed her military strength only
far enough to enable her to repel attacks, the world might take
this view and sympathize with this argument, but she went
far beyond this. Of the danger of the Russian bogey and
French revenge, I shall speak later.

Again, Germany declares that one nation after another has
blocked her program of expansion, has kept her from finding
her "place in the sun." This tune has been harped on very
strongly, especially with reference to Great Britain, largely for
consumption in this country. We have been told with an iter-

18

ation that has become tiresome, that Great Britain was trying
to prevent German commercial expansion, and throttle German
trade. There is not a scrap of proof in diplomatic correspon-
dence or political history since Germany became an empire
that lays a sufficient warrant for such a statement. Great
Britain is and has been a free-trade nation. Her ports have
been open to the ships of all the world on the same terms as
to her own. The ports of her independent colonies have been
open to the ships of all the world, including those of the
mother-country, on the same terms. All that the Germans
had to do was to do the service better and cheaper than the
British, and they could have the carrying trade of Canada, Aus-
tralia or Great Britain herself. The only possible ground for
taking any other view is that certain lines of British ships re-
ceived high pay, which some called subsidies, in return for
mail service, in order that the government might be at liberty
to take them over as cruisers in event of war. But these so-
called subsidies were for a few passenger lines traveling cer-
tain routes, and had no reference to the great mass of British
shipping. German steamship companies had docks in various
parts of the British Empire, including India, as well as in the
British Isles themselves. When, however, the German com-
plainants of alleged British monopoly forgot themselves, as
they did once in a while, they told the world that Germany was
driving British commerce from the seas ; that the world over
German trade was driving out British. Now both statements
could not be true. That is, it could not be true that Great
Britain was throttling German commercial expansion and at
the same time that German commerce was driving out British
all over the world. The truth is that neither statement was
correct. British trade during the years when her foreign crit-
ics and some of her own renegade people called her a decaying
nation, was advancing by leaps and bounds, as statistics will
show. So was that of Germany. And no one welcomed the
German expansion more frankly and cheerfully than did the
statesmen of Great Britain. When Germany was beginning
her colonial program in 1884, Mr. Gladstone said: "If Ger-
many is to become a colonizing power all I can say is God

19

speed her." And Mr. Chamberlain added: "If foreign na-
tions are determined to pursue distant colonial enterprises we
have no right to prevent them." In 1911 Sir Edward Grey
said the same thing in almost the same words. Similar state-
ments are on record from authoritative British statesmen and
publicists with reference to German commerce.

No evidence has ever been produced to show that any one
or all of these countries had any designs upon the peaceful de-
velopment of the German Empire. The Entente Alliance be-
tween Great Britain, France and Russia was, on the other
hand, a measure entered into as a protection against threatened
German aggression. The policy of Germany was to sow dis-
sension among the other states of Europe, keeping them apart
while she herself maintained, through the Triple Alliance, a
solid barrier of force separating eastern Europe from western.

In order to create prejudice in her favor, German writers
have dwelt strongly upon the bogey of navalism, and when
militarism has been criticised have immediately brought out
this jack-in-the-box to make an impression. Unthinking or
prejudiced individuals among ourselves, not fully acquainted
with the facts, have been caught by the phrase. The world
has objected to German militarism in the sense that it was a
mighty military organization, created for the purposes of ag-
gression, and in ways that made its use for aggression not only
possible but almost certain. No such statement can be made
of the alleged British navalism. Search the history of the past
hundred years and you will find that the preponderant British
navy has been used not for the subjugation of alien peoples and
the imposition of foreign law upon unwilling subjects, but has
been engaged in suppressing piracy, in advancing the interests
of science, and in no case has been an aggressor. Nor can a
great naval power dominate in the same sense that a great
military power can do so. For it has been proven over and
over again, the latest instance being the Gallipoli campaign,
that navies cannot overcome land defenses and military power.
But the country which, with a strong navy, backed by a mighty
army, is able to effect a landing, can then use its military
strength for subjugation. The term "freedom of the seas"

20

has been used to conjure with, and to attack British policy.
But the seas have been open and free, the British navy to the
contrary, to the ships of every nation for more than a hundred
years. Indeed, they have been open because of the British
navy. I have been often puzzled to understand just what the
Germans meant by the freedom of the seas. Lately, however,
I have run across the explanation. Here it is as recently given
in one of our newspapers : "In March, 1917, Count Reventlow
explained the phrase at a great meeting in the Berlin Phil-
harmonic Hall. On the authority of the Naval and Military
Record of England this bloodthirsty person thus put himself
on record : 'What does Germany understand by the freedom
of the seas? Of course we do not mean by it the free use of
the seas, which is the common privilege of all nations in time
of peace, or the right to the open highways of international
trade. That sort of freedom of the seas we had before the war.
What we understand today by this doctrine,' he continued, 'is
that Germany should possess such maritime territories and
such naval bases that at the outbreak of war we should be able
with our navy reasonably ready, to guarantee ourselves the
command of the seas. We want such a jumping-off place for
our navy as would give us a fair chance of dominating the seas
and of being free on the seas during a war.' "

Again, the Germans have tried to create a prejudice against
Great Britain by harping upon the mightiness of the British
Empire. They have found it, in their writings and speeches,
rotten and ready to fall apart — because that was what they
wanted. It was amusing to me when I was in Germany to see
the assurance with which the Germans talked of misrule of
Great Britain in her colonies, and of the certainty with which
these colonies would desert her in her hour of trial. Their
conversation and their writings showed that they knew noth-
ing at all about the real facts of the situation. They had lis-
tened, as even some in our neighborhood here had listened and
taken at one hundred per cent value, the diatribes of a few dis-
contented foreigners. The answer to the criticism that the
British Empire should be broken up because it was a tyranny
has been found in the glorious response of the Empire in this
war. 21

As I have already said, another claim of the Germans in de-
fense of their program of expansion was that Russia was a
menace to her. Slav barbarism threatens to overwhelm us,
they said. Our ignorance of real conditions in Russia made it
easy for us to believe this. But the claim could be shown to
be in large measure untrue. Without, however, entering into
the merits of that question, it is sufficient to point out that on
this point as on others the German statements were inconsis-
tent. While professing a fear of Slav domination, they con-
stantly expressed contempt for Russia's military strength.
They had no reason to fear her if they were not afraid of her
army.

At another time it was France that blocked the way of this
chosen people of God in their program of robbery and murder.
Therefore, France must be punished, and in their phrase "bled
white" beyond recovery. I will not insult your intelligence
by answering this claim.

Finally, in order that the world and posterity might be sat-
isfied that she was a much abused and deeply wronged nation
by all the rest of the world, Germany told us that the United
States of America has been in recent years following a policy
that blocked her way. "What do you people want with the
Philippines?" is the question that was frequently asked of
Americans in the days immediately following the Spanish war.
Germany went as far as she dared during our Spanish war to
impede our operations, and to secure the Philippine Islands
for herself. She secured a foothold in the Samoan Islands, and
attempted to secure one in Venezuela.

In short, in seeking to attain her aim of world domination
Germany has planned to absorb her small neighbors and de-
stroy the British Empire, to inculcate propaganda favorable to
herself in every country where her interests could be subserved
thereby. She has established agencies for corrupting and un-
dermining public opinion in every country of the globe where
her plans could thereby be furthered. She has established
through her emigrants in different countries groups strong
enough to dominate opinion and action, or to try to set up in
time a new state under German Government,, as in Brazil. She

22

-Tias used the gains of every war and every diplomatic struggle
as the basis for future aggression. She has permitted nothing
to be done in world politics for twenty years without insisting
on having her "share," whether she had an interest in the par-
ticular matter or not. She shook her mailed fist at Morocco
and rattled her sword at Manila. She has insidiously tried to
destroy the industrial and commercial plants of other coun-
tries, and undermine their economic and social organization.
She has stirred up internal dissensions by bribery and the dis-
semination of falsehoods, and has even gone so far as to stir
up foreign enemies against countries which supposed she was
their friend.

Not only has the German autocracy thrown the shadow of
its sinister designs across the path of the world's progress, but
in its immediate methods of carrying out its purposes, it has
crucified humanity and has violated every principle of kindli-
ness and righteousness. Under the instruction of their mili-
tary staff, the German army went into Belgium and northern
France with the avowed purpose of so terrorizing the inhabi-
tants that the world would be afraid to oppose the Germans.
The belief on their part that such was human nature not only
casts a reflection on their good sense, but makes one wonder
whether they themselves are the kind of people they thought
the rest of us were. In their conduct of the war they have
defied and broken treaties and international law whenever and
wherever it suited their purpose, and they stand today before
the judgment bar of God and men as a people forsworn. They
have violated every moral principle, in the commission of rob-
bery, murder and rape. Neither age, sex nor condition has
been a protection against their violence. Old men, women
and even babes in arms — it made no difference, all must be
trampled in the march of their glorious army. It would have
been bad enough if such conduct had gone only so far as it
could be defended reasonably on military grounds, if ever mili-
tary grounds require such conduct; but no shadow of excuse
that will stand the test of a moment's thought can be brought
forward that will justify the treatment of Belgium and of
northern France. The evidence is abundant and unimpeach-

23

able. We need not seek the testimony of outsiders. We need
rely only on the private diaries of German soldiers and officers,
official proclamations and the photographs of the outraged, the
dead and the dying.

They have destroyed private property and desolated the
country that they have occupied — even while prating about
the sacredness of private property at sea ! No one who knows
them and their program doubts for a moment that this is done
in accordance with official plans for the very purpose of mak-
ing it impossible for a desolated land to be their competitors in
the future. "Anybody who knows the present state of things
in Belgian industry will agree with me," says Deputy Beumer
of the Prussian Diet, "that it must take at least some years —
assuming that Belgium is independent at all — before Belgium
can even think of competing with us in the world market. And
anybody who has traveled, as I have done, through the occu-
pied districts of France, will agree with me that so much dam-
age has been done to industrial property that no one need be
a prophet in order to say that it will take more than ten years
before we need think of France as a competitor or of the re-
establishment of French industry." Here, then, we have the
real motive of the utter desolation which the Germans have
wrought in the occupied territory.

Again, contrary to international law and the custom of war,
for generations, they have resorted to the practices of the Mid-
dle Ages by imposing fines on conquered and occupied cities.

They have violated the treaties of generations, the conduct
of honorable soldiers, the law of nations, and the tenets of
modern civilization by seizing hostages, making them respon-
sible for the acts of other people, and murdering them to suit
their pleasure.

They have violated military law by killing unofficial civil-
ians. They have violated military law, international law, their
own specific pledges, and the law of humanity, by using civil-
ians, including even women and children, as screens before
their advancing soldiers in battle. They have outraged the
conscience of the world, violated international agreement and
set civilization back, by restoring slavery through the deporta-

24

tion of defenseless inhabitants of conquered territory, tearing
them from their families and transporting them to work in Ger-
many or elsewhere.

Through their piratical submarine attacks they have vio-
lated international law, restored piracy and committed murder,
even of neutrals on peaceful ships, innocent travelers, — men,
women, girls, boys and babes in arms.

They have gone back to the war practices of five centuries
ago by their cowardly use of poison gases that inflict the most
awful tortures, so that their opponents are more than justified
in the moderate criticism which they have made, that the Ger-
mans are "not clean fighters."

They have been guilty of inhumanity and violating law by
killing the wounded, by attacking hospitals and Red Cross am-
bulances, and by attacking undefended cities. They have
placed themselves in the same class with the fanatical Turks,
by condoning the massacre of Armenians. Do you doubt the
truth of these statements? Out of their own mouths again,
judge them.

I give a single instance out of many in each case. As to
robbery : "After living about a week in a chateau near Liege,
His Royal Highness, Prince Eitel Fritz, the Duke of Bruns-
wick, and another nobleman of less importance, had all the
dresses that could be found in the wardrobes belonging to the
lady of the house and her daughters packed before their own
eyes and sent to Germany."

As to incendiarism : "The village was surrounded and the
soldiers posted one yard apart so that no one could escape.
Then the Uhlans set fire to the place one house after another.
No man, woman or child could possibly escape. Any one try-
ing to escape was shot."

As to murder, here is one case: "All the villagers fled.
The dead were all buried, numbering 60. Among them were

many old men and women Three children were clasped

in each others arms and had died thus."

As to outrages on women and children, I dare not quote.

As to killing the wounded, I need but recall the order of
General Stenger : "No prisoners are to be taken. All prison-
ers, whether wounded or not, must be slaughtered."

25

As to sheltering themselves behind women and others im
battle, hear Lieut. Eberlein: "I made them sit on chairs in

the middle of the street The civilians whom they had.

put in the same way in the middle of the street were killed by
French bullets. I saw their dead bodies."

As to killing prisoners, I have already quoted General
Stenger.

As to being liars about their conduct, I need not quote.
Read almost any statement of their military chiefs or of any
pro-German.

As to the deportation of civilians, and the restoration of
slavery on a scale unparalleled since the days of the Calmuck
Tartars, read the statements of your own Ambassador Gerard
and other Americans who were on the ground.

Then as to the general character of their procedure in the
conduct of the war, listen to the testimony of one of our own
distinguished fellow-citizens, Mr. F. C. Walcott, one of Mr..
Hoover's staff in Belgium.

A year ago I went to Poland to learn its facts con-
cerning the remnant of a people that had been deci-
mated by war. The country had been twice devas-
tated. First the Russian army swept through it and
then the Germans. Along the roadside from Warsaw
to Pinsk, the present firing line 230 miles, near half a
million people had died of hunger and cold. The way
was strewn with their bones picked clean by the
crows. With their usual thrift, the Germans were
collecting the larger bones to be milled into fertilizer,
but finger and toe bones lay on the ground with the
mud covered and rain soaked clothing.

Wicker baskets were scattered along the way —
the basket in which the baby swings from the rafters
in every peasant home. Every mile there were scores
of them, each one telling a death. I started to count,
but after a little I had to give it up, there were so
many.

That is the desolation one saw along the great
road from Warsaw to Pinsk, mile after mile, more
than two hundred miles. They told me a million
people were made homeless in six weeks of the Ger-

26

man drive in August and September, 1916. They
told me four hundred thousand died on the way

In the refugee camps, 300,000 survivors of the
flight were gathered by the Germans, members of
broken families. They were lodged in jerry-built
barracks, scarcely water-proof, unlighted, unwarmed
in the dead of winter. Their clothes, where the but-
tons were lost, were sewed on. There were no con-
veniences, they had not even been able to wash for
weeks. Filth and infection from vermin were spread-
ing. They were famished, their daily ration a cup of

soup and a piece of bread as big as my fist

In that situation, the German commander

issued a proclamation. Every able-bodied Pole was
bidden to Germany to work. If any refused, let no
other Pole give him to eat, not so much as a mouthful,
under penalty of German military law.

This is the choice the German Government gives
to the conquered Pole, to the husband and father of a
starving family : Leave your family to die or survive
as the case may be. Leave your country which is de-
stroyed, to work in Germany for its further destruc-
tion. If you are obstinate, we shall see that you surely
starve.

Staying with his folk, he is doomed and they are
not saved ; the father and husband can do nothing for
them, he only adds to their risk and suffering. Leav-
ing them, he will be cut off from his family, they may
never hear from him again nor he from them. Ger-
many will set him to work that a German workman
may be released to fight against his own land and peo-
ple. He shall be lodged in barracks, behind barbed
wire entanglements, under armed guard. He shall be
scantily fed and his earnings shall be taken from him
to pay for his food.

That is the choice which the German Government
offers to a proud, sensitive, high-strung people. Death
or slavery.

When a Pole gave me that proclamation, I was
boiling. But I had to restrain myself. I was prac-
tically the only foreign civilian in the country and I
wanted to get food to the people. That was what I
was there for and I must not for any cause jeopardize

27

the undertaking. I asked Governor General von
Beseler, "Can this be true?"

"Really, I cannot say," he replied, "I have signed
so many proclamations ; ask General von Kries."

So I asked General von Kries. "General, this is a
civilized people. Can this be true?"

"Yes," he said, "it is true" — with an air of adding.
Why not?

I dared not trust myself to speak ; I turned to go.
"Wait," he said. And he explained to me how Ger-
many, official Germany, regards the state of subject
peoples.

This, then, men and women of America, is, so far, the story.
Let us turn back, quietly still, and read a little history.

The writings of many Germans make it clear that the an-
ticipated success in the present war was to be a basis for future
action against ourselves. Sixteen years ago a professor of
history in the Royal Academy in Posen and the Academy
in Berlin, Dr. Hotsch, wrote: "The most dangerous foe of
Germany in this generation will prove to be the United
States." Lieut. Edelscheim wrote, in 1901 : "Operations against
the United States of North America must be entirely different.
With that country in particular political friction manifest in
commercial aims has not been lacking in recent years, and has
until now been removed chiefly through acquiescence on our
part. However, as this submission has its limit, the question
arises as to what means we can develop to carry out our pur-
pose with force in order to combat the encroachments of the
United States upon our interests If the German invad-
ing force were equipped and ready for transporting the mo-
ment the battle fleet is dispatched under average conditions,
these corps can begin operations on American soil within at

least four weeks The United States at this time is not

in a position to oppose our troops with an army of equal rank.

As a matter of fact, Germany is the only great power

which is in a position to conquer the United States."

Still another writer, in 1897, expressed the opinion that
"the Monroe doctrine lacks as yet a justification in the unified

28

character of the people" ! Still another tells us : "It is there-
fore the duty of every one who loves languages to see that the
future language spoken in America shall be German."

In 1903 Vollert wrote : "From all this it appears that the

Monroe doctrine cannot be justified And so it remains

only what we Europeans almost universally consider it, an
impertinence." So distinguished an authority as the econo-
mist Schmoller wrote some years ago : "We most desire that
at any cost a German country containing some 20 or 30 million

Germans may grow up in the coming century in Brazil

Unless our connection with Brazil is always secured by ships
of war, and unless Germany is able to exercise pressure there
our development is threatened."

Another professor of political economy (Schulze-Gaever-
nitz) wrote in 1898: "The more Germany is condemned to
an attitude of peaceful resistance toward the United States,
the more emphatically must she defend her interests in Central
and South America where she today occupies an authoritative

position For this purpose we need a fleet capable not

only of coping with the miserable forces of South American
states but powerful enough if the need should arise to cause
Americans to think twice before making any attempt to apply
an economic Monroe doctrine in South America. Still again,
we are told by another that it depends on the political situation
when Germany shall take possession of a harbor in Venezuela.
Before doing so, however, this writer tells his fellow-country-
men that they should determine first whether they are to ac-
quiesce in the American order of "hands off in South America."

In 1904 Friedrich Lange asserted that all the republics of
South America would accept the advice of the German Govern-
ment and listen to reason, either voluntarily or under coercion,
while two years later another wrote that not only North Amer-
ica but the whole of America must become perhaps the strong-
est fortress of the Germanic races. This is one of the writers
who advocated the sending of people of non-Germanic blood
now living in South America to Africa so as to have "a free
South America for those of Germanic blood." This was twelve
years ago. At about the same time another aspirant for his

29

country's expansion told the world that Germany would take
under her protection the republics of Argentina, Chile, Uru-
guay and Paraguay, and other parts of South America where
Germans had settled predominantly.

Still again, in 1915, Professor Hettner of Heidelberg told
his countrymen that in treating with America German public
opinion was to some extent lacking in courage. "J^st because
the United States has set up the Monroe doctrine to exclude
Europeans from America it does not follow that we should
acquiesce in that doctrine."

Throwing a flood of light on the opinions which I have
quoted concerning the attitude of Germany towards the United
States, is the story told by Major N. A. Bailey and published
in the New York Tribune, August 11, 1915. It is as follows:
"At the close of the Spanish-American War, I was returning
on the Santee — I think it was — from Santiago, Cuba, to Mon-

tauk Point On board there was a military attache from

Germany, Count von Goetzen, a personal friend of the Kaiser.
Apropos of a discussion between Count von Goetzen and my-
self on the friction between Admiral Dewey and the German
Admiral at Manila, von Goetzen said to me: 'About 15 years
from now my country will start her great war. She will be in
Paris in about two months after the commencement of hostil-
ities. Her move on Paris will be but a step to her real object
— the crushing of England. Everything will move like clock-
work. We will be prepared and others will not be prepared.
I speak of this because of the connection which it will have
with your own country. Some months after we finish our
work in Europe we will take New York and probably Wash-
ington and hold them for some time. We will put your coun-
try in its place with reference to Germany. We do not pur-
pose to take any of your territory, but we do intend to take a
billion or more dollars from New York and other places. The
Monroe doctrine will be taken charge of by us, as we will
then have put you in your place, and we will take charge of
South America, as far as we want to.' "

Finally, we have to bear in mind the remark of the gentle-
man who has several times proclaimed that he took his stand

30

beside his allies in shining armor, the Emperor himself. Am-
bassador Gerard tells us that in conversation with him the
Emperor repeatedly said : "America had better look out after
this war," and "I shall stand no nonsense from America after
the War."

The sentiments that have been described above have come
to the surface on several occasions in the history of the past
two decades. The story of the attitude and interference of the
German Admiral Diedrichs with the operations of Admiral
Dewey and his attempt, without success, to persuade the Brit-
ish Admiral to take the same view, are well known. Yet
Chancellor von Bulow, speaking in the Reichstag in 1899 evi-
dently approved the truculent attitude of his Admiral. He
said among other things, that the need of Germany for coaling
stations was most clearly indicated at the time of the Spanish-
American war, and that the introduction in the Reichstag of a
bill for the increase of the German navy was justified by the
occurrences of the Spanish-American war, the disturbances in
Samoa and the war in South Africa.

In connection with the Spanish war, not only did the Ger-
man Admiral by his actions show contempt for the American
fleet, but he gave indirect aid to our enemy ; he interfered as far
as he dared in an obstructive way in the operations of Dewey's
fleet, and tried the patience of our Admiral almost to the break-
ing point. Later on the same commander in the same cruiser,
the Panther, slipped into a harbor of Venezuela and en-
deavored to get a foothold there. German influence has been
thrown against the construction and the control of the Panama
Canal by ourselves and against the purchase by us of the
Danish West India Islands.

In spite of this fearful indictment, in spite of this long series
of truculent acts against every people in the world who were
imagined by German leaders to stand in their way, we still
find some of our people asking why we went into the war ! We
went in for a variety of reasons.

In the first place, we were called on as one of the leaders
of humanity to take a stand in defense of civilization, right-
eousness and law. When our forefathers published the Decla-

31

ration of Independence they said that among other reasons for
issuing their statement was a decent respect for the opinions
of mankind. No such respect has been shown by the German
Government in this war, or the incidents that preceded it. Has
a man no duty when he sees his neighbor beaten, robbed or
murdered? Has a people, a country, a nation no duty to act
when it sees the principles for which it stands trampled to the
earth; and its neighbors maltreated, robbed and murdered?
Has a nation no duty, nay, has a nation no interest to protect,
when it sees principles and practices antagonistic to its own ex-
istence established in a neighboring community? The answer
is given in our own Declaration of Independence when the
writers said that one of the causes for rebelling was the
attempt of the king of Great Britain to establish in a neighbor-
ing province a government that would be inimical to our own.
Every principle and precept of humanity, the duty to defend
righteousness and law among nations, every interest involved
in the maintenance of our own democratic form of govern-
ment, called us to join in this war.

Again, were we to stand apart when the moral sense of the
world was outraged by the murder and oppression of the peo-
ple of Belgium and northern France? What defense can a
man or a nation offer if he stands passive and silently acquies-
ces in such deeds as the massacre of the Armenians, the Ser-
bians and the Poles, and the enslavement of the Belgians? Is
it worthy of a free people to refuse to resent such things as the
murder of Edith Cavell, or Captain Fryatt, or the innocent
travelers on the Lusitania?

We said we went to war with Spain to free the people of
Cuba from tyranny and misery and give them an opportunity
to live as freemen. That is a humanitarian motive. Did we
lie? If we did not, then such a motive justifies our entry into
this war.

But there are more important reasons for our intervention.
Our pride and national dignity have been insulted by the
system of propaganda which has undertaken to corrupt and
undermine our public opinion, to falsify and to destroy our
political and moral ideals, to interfere with our industry and

32

trade by the destruction, at the risk of life, of industrial and
other establishments. As a far-seeing people we are called
on to interpose ourselves to prevent the growth of an auto-
cratic government to a point of strength where at its leisure
and pleasure it can defy that Monroe doctrine which we have
regarded as one of the greatest safeguards of liberty in the
western hemisphere.

But even more specifically : We were insultingly told that
we must not sell munitions of war. Apparently it was the high
prerogative of the German nation to do this to any belligerent,
but we might not do it if it injured or even displeased the
German autocracy. We patiently pleaded our cause, showing
the reasons for our action. The German Government tried to
stir up internal sentiment against us. She then issued her
edicts about shipping. We protested against attacks on neutral
ships by submarines and particularly against the sinking of
neutral vessels or of any vessel in ways contrary to maritime
international law endangering the lives of the crew and pas-
sengers. Pretending to acquiesce, the German Government
waited for an opportune time, when she had increased the
number of her submarines, and then defied the request and the
wish of the United States. She sent to an untimely death inno-
cent children and women as well as men, and in too many
instances her submarine commanders sank vessels in such a
way as to make it almost impossible for passengers or crew
to survive. "Sink them so that not a trace will be left behind"
seems to have been the order of other representatives of the
German Government than the fool who spoke for it in Buenos
Aires. "Public policy prompted by the emotions is stupidity.
Humanitarian dreams are imbecility. Diplomatic charity be-
gins at home. Statesmanship is business. Right and wrong
are notions indispensable in private life. The German people
are always right because they number 87,000,000 souls."

But why prolong the horrible story? If in the face of the
evidence easily accessible to all, and only part of which I have
touched upon, there is any one among us who still is in doubt
about the wisdom and necessity of our entering the war, then
he would not listen if the country were covered with the in-

33

vaders and we were experiencing the same ruthlessness that
has befallen the people of Belgium, Serbia, Poland, Armenia
and France. If any one now does not believe that it has been
the set purpose of the imperial German Government to domi-
nate the earth, to destroy democracy and establish autocracy,
then he too must be one of those 87 million German people
who are always right because they are German.

Therefore, fellow-citizens, in going to Europe to fight side
by side with glorious Britain, heroic France and courageous
Italy, we are simply defending our own shores, our own lives,
our own families. For it is as clear as the sunlight that if
German autocracy succeeds in establishing its aims on the con-
tinent of Europe, the Republic of America will be the next
victim. And if we had not undertaken to stem the rising tide
of slavery and terror on the other side of the Atlantic we would
have found it necessary to do it on this side alone. It would
not have been only the burning of New York, or Boston, or
Washington, or Charleston ; it would not have been only the
imposition of fines and indemnities of billions of dollars; it
would not have meant merely the destruction of our property
and the robbery of our sustenance ; it would have meant the
dishonor or the death, or both, of those who are dear to us;
it would have meant the destruction of that great national
spirit and national organization which has been established
and cemented by the blood of our fathers ; it would have meant
the turning back of the liberty of the individual and the world
to the conditions of five centuries ago ; it would have meant the
blotting out of that spirit of freedom, that spirit of indepen-
dence, that spirit of duty, that spirit of high idealism, which
we like to characterize as American ; it would have meant that
instead of America's being, as she always has been, the hope
of the world, she would take her place among the beaten and
degraded and enslaved nations under the heel of an emperor
who claims to represent God, and whose shining armor, no
longer shining, but begrimed with the blood of the innocent
and the weak, is still waving his sword in defiance of law and
order and right.

84

Think about these things. Go home, look at your barns,
and remember that if "This Thing" comes to our shores it will
be well for you to burn them before the invader does. Look at
your crops and your trees. If he reaches our shores cut them
down and burn them. It will be better to do that than to let
them fall into his hands. Look at your wife and your daugh-
ters, and be ready to follow the example of Virginius, in an-
cient Rome. For it were better that they were dead. Think
of the liberty you have enjoyed, and choose to lie dead rather
than give it up. Think of the country of which you are a part
and which your fathers and yourself have helped to build up,
and make up your mind to lay it desolate in universal ruin
according to your own way, because if you do not and are
beaten it will be done in the invader's way.

To prevent these things is our task. "To such a task," in
the words of our great President, "we can dedicate our lives
and our fortunes, everything that we are, and everything
that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day
has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and
her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness
and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she
can do no other."

I see a vision! "I see a drumhead court-martial. ^ I see an
English woman, tall, sweet-faced and pale. I see her calm

under the lash of words of torment I see her led away.

I see her blindfolded as six men with rifles step away.

I see the garments torn, exposing her left breast so that they
will need no other white mark to reach her heart. I hear a
command. I hear a report. A form crumples into a grave, and
a soul takes flight to the God that gave it."

But wait. My eye turns back to our own land. A mes-
senger boy with a thin yellow envelope in his hand has just
entered a quiet cottage in central Illinois. The messenger
leaves. The father and mother sit alone dry eyed and still.
By and by the woman, rising, goes to her husband and taking
one lapel of his coat in each hand she shakes him fiercely, and

^From "The Cross of Gold," by C. F. Johnson, Twin Falls, Idaho.

35

says : "John, they have killed my boy in France, and I want
you to DO SOMETHING." So when 500,000 more or less
are murdered in France, and parents begin to go all over the
nation saying "They have killed my boy in France, won't you,
and you, and you, do something?" we will plow, and dig, and
mine, and nail, and work, and think, and pray and fight. And
still the call will ring in our ears : They've killed my boy in
France; won't you do something? and, by the Eternal God,
we will!